Vancouver Olympic Mascots Debut

(ATR) Meet Miga, Quatchi and Sumi, the mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics who were introduced to the world Tuesday.

Miga is a snowboarding, surfing orca whale and Kermode bear hybrid. Quatchi is a Sasquatch, better known outside British Columbia as Bigfoot, who enjoys hockey and photography. Sumi is an alpine ski-loving animal spirit with the wings of a Thunderbird and legs of a black bear.

The trio is accompanied by Mukmuk, a Vancouver Island marmot who is not an official mascot, but a “sidekick” who enjoys eating, burrowing and making friends.

The quartet – designed by Vicki Wong of Vancouver and Michael Murphy of Los Angeles – made their debut in a four-minute animated video and in larger-than-life form for an audience of elementary school children and guests in an RCMP-secured theatre.

Vancouver Olympic organizers began an international search for designers on Sept. 28, 2006 and received 177 expressions of interest. Wong and Murphy’s company Meomi Design was chosen on Dec. 15, 2006. Their designs were tested in focus groups in Vancouver, Toronto and Seattle.

“The research showed the characters were universally liked among all age groups,” said a VANOC news release.

“All of the mascots were considered fun, cute and friendly and parents universally considered them to be appropriate for their children.”

The Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics’ mascots were twin, cowboy hat-wearing polar bears Hidy and Howdy. The 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal featured Amik the beaver.

The 2010 Winter Olympics begin in 808 days on Feb. 12, 2010 in Vancouver’s B.C. Place Stadium. Two years ago, VANOC chose a controversial multicoloured Inuit inukshuk as its logo. There are no Inuit tribes in the Olympics’ host province.

Written by Bob Mackin in Vancouver.

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